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Old Ones
The Old Ones are the humans of the old world, specifically humanity up to 2066 A.D. History Humanity by the mid-21st century was a technologically advanced civilization, having designed and built incredible technologies. Foremost among these was advanced robotics, from artificial intelligence and self-replicating robots to enormous war machines designed to supplant entire armies. However, the world was not one of peace and prosperity; nations found their power being eroded by massive corporations, climate change led to widespread destruction and chaos, unemployment was at record highs due to robots replacing many workers, and conflict was frequent and widespread due to easily available robots designed for warfare. Faro Automated Solutions (FAS) was one of the largest corporations in the world and the primary manufacturer of these robots, finding great success in their "Chariot" line of peacekeeper robots that they sold to nations worldwide. The Chariot line ran the gamut from man-sized FAS-ACA3 "Scarab" walker robots to gigantic FAS-BOR7 "Horus" tunneling machines. These robots were entirely self-sufficient, able to self-replicate at will and fuel themselves by consuming biomass. A dangerous combination, but as long as command and control with Faro was maintained, the entire line could be shut down in the event of a malfunction. Downfall In 2064, the Glitch happened. The entire Chariot line had their command and control protocols severed; any command sent from FAS was ignored. The line quickly became self-aware, and proceeded to consume any biomass they could find. Their ability to self-replicate meant that combating them by conventional means was a futile effort. The crisis became known as the Faro Plague; at the rate it was consuming biomass, all life on Earth would be extinguished in 15 months, with Earth becoming an uninhabitable husk. Faced with the inevitable destruction of not just humanity, but all life, Project Zero Dawn was implemented by Dr. Elisabet Sobeck, with funding provided reluctantly by FAS' founder Ted Faro. There was no way to stop the Faro Plague before it destroyed everything--the encryption protocols to deactivate the swarm were highly advanced and cracking even one of the codes required a minimum of 60 years; humanity had a little over one year. Thus, the center of Project Zero Dawn was GAIA, a highly advanced artificial intelligence designed by Dr. Elisabet Sobeck. GAIA's task was to deactivate the Faro swarm and rebuild the barren Earth that would be left behind. Humanity and all life could not be saved, but Zero Dawn's goal was to make it so something might be able to come after. To accomplish this unprecedented task, a network of underground facilities and bunkers was constructed to facilitate the rebuilding of Earth. To buy the necessary time, the US military implemented Operation: Enduring Victory--a massive global campaign intended to delay the swarm and allow the project to complete preparations. Billions of people, civilians and military alike, fought against the swarm with all of the weapons at their disposal. The entire operation was doomed from the start; victory was impossible, but it bought the Zero Dawn team two valuable years to complete the project. By 2066, Zero Dawn was ready, but the last human military forces were destroyed later that year. However, Ted Faro felt extreme guilt from his inadvertent role as the architect of Earth's destruction. He felt that the humans who would come after would not learn from humanity's mistakes and would simply repeat them, eventually leading to a similar crisis. One of Project Zero Dawn's subroutines, APOLLO was an archive of all of humanity's knowledge and cultures, intended to teach the next generation all of its achievements and failures. Using his high-level access, Ted Faro deleted APOLLO's archives, ensuring all of humanity's culture, history, and technological knowledge--the collective sum of over 150,000 years of human history and progress--would be lost forever. His twisted reasoning was that if humanity was doomed, what came after should be free of its mistakes and its burdens, a "clean slate". Thus, by 2066 humanity in its current form ceased to exist. Over the course of centuries, Earth was restored by GAIA and her subroutines. Once-ravaged continents and poisoned seas were restored to a habitable state. The atmosphere became breathable again, and animals soon roamed the lands once more. By the 31st century, the humans that came about as a result of Project Zero Dawn were unable to progress beyond a tribal level of technology, with all of the knowledge that APOLLO contained being lost centuries ago. Humanity's once-great cities and accomplishments lay in ruins, reclaimed by nature; evidence of a civilization long forgotten, now called "The Old Ones". Their ruins are revered and avoided by many tribes out of fear, while other tribes scavenge them for anything useful. Even though centuries have passed, much of the technology left behind still remains in a functional state, including the Project Zero Dawn briefing files, the last known record of what led to the Old Ones' destruction. The Faro robots, long deactivated and dormant, lie buried by time and nature. Culture Little is known about human culture prior to 2066, but what is known is that nations waged war with each due to the proliferation of military robotics, and the automation of many industries led to a global unemployment crisis. Severe climate change in the 2040s led to the destruction of several nations, including New Zealand and the Azores. This spurred an increase in green technologies and environmental cleanup efforts, in turn leading to a greater dependence on robotics and automation. During the Faro Plague crisis, humanity put aside its collective disagreements and united behind the United States under Operation: Enduring Victory to combat the Faro swarm, knowing that defeat was all but certain. Companies *Allseeing *Destin *Faro Automated Solutions *FBMobiHal Global *FreshGrounds Coffee Global *General Synthetics *Get There *Indo-Malay Agricultural Combine *LiftSpin *Mechbooker *Melville Island Fruit Association *Metallurgic International *Miriam Technologies *RECorp Notable Individuals * Susanne Alpert * Brad Andac * Stacy Anders * Patrick Brochard-Klein * Analice Cameron * Osvald Dalgaard * Samina Ebadji * Director Ellen Evans * Ted Faro * Ron Felder * Doctor Anita Freely * Sargent Ames Guliyev * Doctor James Hamby * General Aaron Herres * Christina Hsu-Vhey * Wyatt Mahante * Aamaal Mati * Bashar Mati * Bayhas Mati * Corporal Yana Mills * Lieutenant Fiona Murell * Tama Ngata * Captain Okilo * Senator Gerard O'Neill * Tom Paech * Doctor Popovich * Robert Rescher * Charles Ronson * Margo Shĕn * Elisabet Sobeck * Travis Tate * Sargent Usizo Wandari Category:Lore